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Monday, February 3

Capote.

Good morning and happy Monday people of internetland! I hope you've had a beautiful weekend and a wonderful 2014 so far. Over the weekend we've had one of the first notable losses of the new year. Academy Award winning actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman passed away at the tender age of 46 from a drug overdose. An incredible actor, Hoffman was fearless with his role choices as well as ambitious and awe-inspiring as one of the greatest actors of the generation. So for today's Monday movie, I've chosen one of my favorite Hoffman flicks based on the life of one of my favorite authors.

Based on Gerald Clarke's autobiography and originally opening on September 30, 2005 to coincide with what would have been Truman Capote's 81st birthday, Capote follows the events leading up to the writing of his best selling novel, In Cold Blood.

After the murder of the Cutter family, Truman Capote travels to Kansas with best friend (and famed novelist) Harper Lee, to begin work on what would be his most famous novel. In the beginning Capote only intends to interview those people involved with the victims. However after making nice with Alvin Dewey, the lead detective on the case, he gets the inside scoop on the case and even begins making visits to see the murder suspects. He develops an unlikely relationship with one of the suspects, Perry Smith. Smith's story intrigues Capote, who eventually gets the material he needs to write his iconic novel. Check out the trailer for Capote below:

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but more often than not biographic movies with major potential end up a sad parody instead of an inside look into the life of a legacy. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Truman Capote was less a cheap imitation and more a channeling of America's great nonfiction writer, a man whose oddities conceal immense intelligence and deep damage. Hmm, maybe Hoffman was more like Truman Capote than any of us could have ever imagined.

Capote is a film of extraordinary insight regarding a man who stopped at no means to get the scoop of the century, and in the process loses all sense of self-awareness.